The Washington Independent

Posts Tagged washington mutual

WaMu’s Killinger on ‘Too Clubby to Fail’ Banks

By | 04.13.10 | 4:42 pm

Kerry Killinger was the chairman and chief executive officer of Washington Mutual, the $300 billion savings-and-loan organization, from 1990 until 2008. During his tenure, he made more than $100 million in compensation, including more than $14 million in 2007 and $21 million in 2008 — granted for More…

Senate Report to Show How WaMu Became a Financial ‘Polluter’

By | 04.12.10 | 6:32 pm

For the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, it is WaMu week.

Tomorrow, the subcommittee will release more than 500 documents on Washington Mutual, the $300 billion bank that helped fuel the subprime bubble and then collapsed in the biggest bank failure in U.S. history. It will also hold a More…

Recapturing Writedowns

By | 05.26.09 | 5:05 pm

Here’s a fun accounting term to remember: accretable yield. That’s the difference between a loan’s value on a bank’s balance sheet and the expected cash flow from the loan. Bloomberg reports:

JPMorgan Chase & Co. stands to reap a $29 billion windfall thanks to an accounting rule that lets

More…

Agency at Forefront of Mortgage Crisis Making a Comeback

By | 01.09.09 | 4:59 pm

Just a few months ago, after the failures of Washington Mutual and IndyMac Bancorp shook the financial world, industry consultant Bert Ely would have bet it was time to shut down the Office of Thrift More…

Ties That Bind

By | 10.22.08 | 4:09 pm

The complex structure of modern capital markets is increasingly the cause of financial crises. External shocks like a decline in housing prices are intensified as they move through the convoluted chains of dealings that link market participants. Concentration of trading among a small group of dealers only heightens the many More…

The Peculiar Timing of WaMu’s Demise

By | 09.26.08 | 8:48 am

As if there weren’t enough news going on already, Washington Mutual goes belly up in the largest bank failure in U.S. history, and JP Morgan Chase buys up all its pieces.

WaMu was one of the more notorious subprime lenders – remember this pool of WaMu Alt-A loans More…